Monday, January 09, 2017

Sporting Add Two More to Their Roster

Sporting Kansas City made two more moves today, continuing to revamp their forward line after the struggles in 2016. The team today announced the acquisition of Latif Blessing and Christian Volesky.

Blessing, rumored to be joining Kansas City since December, joins Sporting KC from Liberty Professionals in his native Ghana. Last season, Blessing was the league's MVP and was a finalist for the Ghanaian FA Cup MVP after helping Liberty to the semifinals. He'll continue Sporting KC's reworking of the wings, joining Gerso Fernandes and Tyler Pasher as offseason additions on the wing for the club. Blessing, just 20 years old should provide more speed for Kansas City on the wing and some creativity. There are obviously some concerns about his ability to convert to MLS in his style of play, level of competition, and speed of play, but you have that with any foreign signing. Still, on the surface this seems to be some good business from Peter Vermes, who grab Blessing out from under the nose of other African clubs like Capetown Ajax in South Africa. He'll be on a three year contract, with an option for a fourth in 2020.

The signing of Volesky was rumored on Friday when news really started to pick up about Sporting KC reportedly trading a fourth round pick to the Timbers on December 31st. The forward had been a second round draft pick by the Timbers in 2015, but didn't sign with the club. Volesky spent the last two years in Rochester, playing with the Rhinos. Volesky scored 18 goals in his two seasons with the Rhinos, helping them to the USL title in 2015. Volesky would appear to be some forward depth behind Dom Dwyer in the middle for Sporting KC. Sporting is currently extremely short handed at center forward with only Dwyer and Daniel Salloi there (and Vermes has mentioned playing Salloi on the wing) with Diego Rubio out with his torn ACL. So acquiring some depth at forward was something that KC needed to do before the season starts. In return, Sporting sent their fourth round pick (80th overall) in this year's Superdraft to the Timbers.

Sporting KC is likely to now be turning their full attention to Friday's Superdraft, where the club now has two picks, the 14th overall and the 58th.